


a course held steady

by mrwonderwoman (saete)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, I Believe in Jasper Sitwell, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Phil Coulson lives, Porn with Feelings, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Reunion Sex, Team as Family, Tenderness, blink and you miss it - Freeform, just for fun, my rights!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:33:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24858439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saete/pseuds/mrwonderwoman
Summary: With the events of Project Insight now in place and the context of SHIELD being HYDRA, Clint finds himself looking back and realizing a few things about his former coworkers. Phil, of course, is there to help settle him in the aftermath.Sequel toThe Ball in Your Court. This will make much more sense if you’ve read that (andthe fic that inspired it).
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Comments: 21
Kudos: 90





	a course held steady

**Author's Note:**

> I’m handwaving the circumstances of Phil’s death, and AoU didn’t happen :)  
>    
> The vague wish for a sequel to The Ball in Your Court has been on my mind since Ralkana mentioned it in a comment (and I’m still so happy that they thought I did a good job for Clint’s perspective, since it was based on their fic [Making a Play](https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/1487875)). I took a little liberty with the setting because Post-CA:WS canon divergence is my happy place, and I kind of went off with the team dynamics, but in principle it still mostly holds true to the initial concept from the comment because I loved that and could picture it perfectly. And now there’s bits before and after to sandwich the idea and flesh it out into a full fic! I hope you all enjoy!

Right now, Clint _cannot_ be assed to try and figure out how to move through his apartment in a way that qualifies as quiet. One of his aids is shattered to shit and the other one hasn’t wanted to stay calibrated for the past two hours. And maybe, possibly, he just doesn’t want to be alone right now and wouldn’t mind some attention. So he lets the door fall heavily shut behind him and his bow case thud to the ground before tromping through the front room and down the hallway, a trail of outerwear and personal gear being stripped off and falling behind him as he makes his way to the bedroom.

He kicks one boot off and knocks the bedroom door open with the other before hopping his way into the room as he removes that one too. It falls to the floor and with one more step, Clint flops onto the end of the bed, legs trailing off the mattress and toes touching the carpet. His face is absorbed by the comforter and so is most of the long, exhausted groan he exhales.

A gentle hand lands on the back of his head.

“Well what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” Phil asks quietly. He starts stroking his fingers through Clint’s short hair. It’s a patented double effort to cheer him up.

Clint turns his face to the side.

“A guy like me …” he mumbles back. The words stick inside his mouth and head and stay there for a minute.

“You okay?” Phil prompts. It’s nice that Clint’s one aid has decided to work and is picking up his voice just fine.

Clint takes a deep breath and lets out a heavy exhale, “Yeah.”

Phil keeps brushing his hair with his fingers. “How was the mission?”

Clint turns his face back into the mattress and groans louder than the first time.

“I see,” Phil replies.

Clint turns his face back to the side. “I hate how accurate their name is. We took out five HYDRA cells in a row, one after another, and what did it lead us to? Information about eleven more that we have to go back and take care of! All of them still active!”

“At least the name gives you the courtesy of forewarning.”

“This is never gonna _eeeend_ ,” he yells into the quilted down. He lifts his head again. “Cap was so fuckin antsy on the trip home – he didn’t want to leave at all. We’re only back for analytics and equipment repairs.” Which, with Tony means limit-pushing upgrades.

“Well that’ll be a nice break, won’t it? A few days if not the full week probably.”

“And then it’s another two months minimum before we get to come back, unless there’s an emergency or one of us is _dying_.” It isn’t like they haven’t had close calls with rough injuries and still stayed put anyways once or twice.

“You’d be bored to tears if there weren’t things that needed superhero-ing,” Phil says knowingly.

“But I miss you.” Clint can hear how completely pitiful he sounds and he doesn’t care. It makes him feel better.

“I know,” Phil’s tone is empathetic, “I miss you too, little bird.” Clint sighs and lets his eyes fall shut. Phil keeps stroking.

“Things didn’t sound so bad the last time you called,” Phil says, a brightness to his voice that tries to coax Clint towards a silver lining. “It sounded like you all were having fun.”

Clint shrugs his shoulders as much as he can while lying down. He’d called when the time difference lined up, which had been while Phil was on a lunch break and they were all cooking dinner together. “We like each other.”

“That’s good,” Phil says encouragingly.

“Yeah,” Clint agrees, quietly.

“And I know everyone has their own lives and pursuits, but I can say with some confidence that you’d _all_ be going stir-crazy if there weren’t superhero things to be doing. Even if those things are halfway across the world.” 

Phil had been there firsthand in his hospital bed to witness the cabin fever that plagued their little group when there was nothing any of them could do to personally help save him or make his recovery any easier in the typical methods of operation that they were each singularly used to up to that point. And like Phil said, they each still are their own people, who - with the exception of him and Natasha - don’t know everything about each other ( _not yet_ , a hopeful part of him thinks privately). But they’re also something more when they’re together, and after so much time spent abroad in close quarters keeping each other company, Clint is certain that they all feel and recognize it.

“This at least is keeping you all off the proverbial streets, isn’t it? There’s only so much trouble you can get into in the isolated European countryside.”

Clint scoffs. “Yeah, that’s for sure.”

“Oh?”

Clint shrugs one shoulder. “I mean, maybe it’s nothing, but, on one of the transport flights back, Tony was talking through the last project he’d been toying around with before we all upheaved our lives to help Cap find his boyfriend and …” He does a low whistle.

“That bad?”

“We had a friendly debate about it but I think Bruce talked him down.” Phil isn’t asking directly and so Clint doesn’t think he cares much to explain it all right now. They’re okay to speak in abstracts. “Maybe Pepper and Colonel Rhodes had already had it out with him – he wasn’t super hard to convince. But he still seemed like he thought it was a fine idea until we all gave our two cents and talked everything through. Having Thor there to promise space-backup helped too, probably.” It probably helped put everyone’s mind at rest. Clint thinks that an important factor there is that Thor is around enough these days for Tony to believe and trust him. Not all the time, but he comes back more often than just when they need him. Like he likes it on Earth. Like he likes _them_ and really wants to help.

“So it sounds like keeping you busy is good for something then.”

“I guess, yeah.” Clint is hardly convinced. “It’s keeping us from overthinking the superhero thing and instead just making us actually _do_ the superhero thing. But it just feels like a corporate retreat. A bunch’a trust-building exercises disguised as some high-stakes milk runs.”

Phil hums in acknowledgement. “Tired of your European vacation?” he jokes, as they’ve been referring to the extended periods Clint has been having to spend away from home and Phil.

“No,” he says thoughtfully, “I think we’d still be touring Europe, I just think we’d all be mad at each other and especially Tony.”

Phil huffs a laugh.

“I guess it’s nice to be working in a big team like this. And a consistent one. Like, with all the same members all the time.”

Clint knows that he and Natasha are going with Cap because they feel partially responsible for SHIELD being HYDRA and working for them all these years. And for Natasha it’s very specifically another reparation for the damage the Red Room has done to the world. But the others coming with them and helping out … that feels special. None of them have to. They’re just doing it because many hands make light work, and because Phil did his damnedest to turn them into an actual functioning team early on, and it worked.

Having Sam Wilson around has definitely helped to balance things out too. He’s similar to Cap in a lot of ways – smart, headstrong, funny (outright, not dry or Dadaist like Steve), steady moral compass, doesn’t take shit from anyone – but he doesn’t wear a broken heart on his sleeve. Cap still needs time to heal, Clint knows that, but it doesn’t mean that Sam isn’t easier to be around. And where Steve tries to bring everyone together with the brute force of leading action and heartening speeches and pure _belief_ , Sam just kind of naturally draws people to him. He’s less reserved, but again Steve seems like he’s been holding himself back almost his whole life (with only marginal success). They’re good for each other though. Sam’s good for everybody, and it’s really cool that he’s somehow managed to find redeeming and likeable qualities in all of them. It can be hard to do. The reverse is only slightly less difficult, but again, Sam is easy to like. Even Tasha thinks he’s great. She really hit it off with him and Cap both, and Clint is happy he got to go along for the ride. Every time it happens it’s kind of the best to watch Natasha making actual friends. Especially after coming out of such a huge trust-issue cluster fuck with Project Insight.

They really are becoming a team and getting to know each other and it’s become this beautiful fluid thing only intermittently interrupted by explosions and enemy fire.

The only one who isn’t really happy with things is Bruce because he hates hulking-out which is 85% of the heroing he does for the team but - maybe they’re getting to a place where he can see it as a good thing? … Clint doesn’t know. Bruce hasn’t seemed as begrudging of suiting up lately. And maybe that’s because he’s resigned himself to this fate, but Clint has also seen Pepper talking with him a lot, and he’s long suspected that she had (and has) a heavy hand in their group cohesion the way Phil did (does). Maybe she’s helping him make peace with himself. She’s good at making people feel welcome. At home, even.

On top of that, Clint knows for sure that Bruce’s quality of life has improved since the Chitauri invasion. For starters, letting Tony put him up and help fund his research has taken some burdens off his plate, and he buys Bruce more legal protection than General Ross could spit at. God, they all fuckin' hate that guy.

But with all that time and funding on his hands, part of Clint wonders – if Bruce really does hate his alter ego so much – if that means that his research includes trying to undo it. Would the Hulk even allow him to?

A sudden solemnity comes over him.

He clears his throat and Phil’s hand twitches, like he’d started to doze off again in Clint’s introspective silence, but he instinctively goes back to stroking Clint’s hair.

“In the data …” Clint says, “there’s hints that HYDRA kept trying for a supersoldier long after Cap and Sargent Barnes. Human experiments.” He swallows hard around nothing. “I don’t even know what we’re going to do if we come across that.”

“You’re going to take care of it.” Phil sounds so assured.

Clint grunts, dissatisfied with this.

“And, if you’ll pardon my blatant hypocrisy,” he’s speaking in a quiet, sleepy voice but he sounds so put-together still, like always, “that’s really a problem for tomorrow. Right now, you should try to get some sleep.”

Clint’s grunt this time is more neutral, bordering on agreement.

“You know Steve is going to want to get started as early as possible.”

Clint stifles a grin. It’s still a little weird sometimes to reconcile their mutual familiarity with a historic icon.

“Well he can _wait_. I’m sleeping in tomorrow, and I’m having sex with my husband.” He rolls his shoulders in a stretch. “Just because Steve’s not getting any right now doesn’t mean he can make the rest of us suffer.”

“Don’t be mean,” Phil chides. “Besides, what makes you think I’ll have time to _give you any_ in the morning?”

“Who’s being mean now?”

“I do have a job you know.”

“Yeah, and it’s to babysit me and five other superheroes.”  
Sam doesn’t need any babysitting.

“Excuse me but one, I’m stationed stateside and so I’m not in charge of any of you at the moment. And two, I’m far too sleepy to keep nitpicking this with you right now.”

“Mmm,” Clint hums in acknowledgement.

Phil scratches at the top of his neck. “That’s your cue to get up. Go hit the showers and come back to bed.”

Clint lifts a hand and reaches out for Phil’s thigh over the sheets. “Any chance I could convince you to join me?”

Phil moves his hand from the back of Clint’s head to pat the coercive hand on his leg. “Not on your life.”

“Worth a shot.”

Phil grunts. “Keep making those kinds of shots and you’ll ruin your perfect record.”

Clint pushes up onto his forearms and pouts, but Phil’s eyes are already shut and so he has no audience. “Some welcome home this is turning out to be.”

“Maybe _next time_ ,” Phil says in a faux encouraging tone, “if you don’t wake me up in the middle of the night tromping around like a barbarian, then you can expect a better one at an appropriate hour.”

“Barbarians need love too,” Clint grumbles as he gets up off the bed.

Phil hums a sound of neutral acknowledgement, and Clint concedes. He goes to the dresser and picks out a clean shirt and boxers then makes his way to the bathroom. Choosing the luxury of temperature over time, he cranks up the water’s heat. He’ll take the longer shower he really wants in the morning - and maybe Phil will even join him for that one - but right now he doesn’t think he can stay on his feet for much longer. His mind blanks as the water rushes over him and he goes through the motions of cleaning himself. Getting dressed is the same story. But as he stands in front of the mirror over the sink to brush his teeth, the phrase “ _a guy like you_ ” floats across his brain. And- … something about triple entendres …

Maybe Phil’s used it on him before? Although, Clint is really more the one for cheesy pickup lines. Part of him is sure that the context he’s thinking of was different than that, too. 

He shuts off the bathroom light and picks his way back through his own discarded items in the dark. He stops to put his broken comm-link ears on his nightstand and checks the dehumidifier in the drawer for his [BTE’s](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hearing-loss/in-depth/hearing-aids/art-20044116), then lifts the cool sheets and comforter and sits. The mattress sinks under him and he sighs. It’s good to be home. He lies back, settling his head on his pillow, just relaxing for a moment before he inevitably rolls over and fits himself up against Phil to snuggle.

He takes a deep breath.

And then it clicks.

 _Garrett_.

The memory hits him and his body jackknifes.

“Holy shit,” he says aloud, but the words are muffled in his ears.

He stares off into space at the wall past the foot of their bed as he’s rocketed back to a night of uncertainty and performative masculinity. It’s been years and years. But a month of hunting down Nazis in combination with that phrase Garrett had kept using the night he tried to poach him, and the dots just connected themselves.

It takes Clint a moment to realize that beside him, Phil has tensed up. He looks down and finds Phil reaching to touch his forearm and staring up at him with concern and alarm, and wonders at how freaked out he must sound to warrant that expression. Probably at least as freaked out as he feels. Clint tries to give an explanation but the words just sort of spill out:

“Phil. Holy shit … holy shit– _Phil_. I- That bastard totally tried to- to- ! I mean, I didn’t _know_. But that- It wasn’t- Garrett. He- he-“

Clint comes to a halt when Phil squeezes his arm. He tugs it a little and Clint looks down at him again. Phil’s free hand lifts and starts to sign along with the words his mouth is making.

“ _Are you okay?_ ”

Clint hesitates but then nods before he turns away to lean towards his nightstand. Phil’s grip releases as Clint reaches into the drawer for his aids. He sits back upright to puts them in.

“Yeah,” he answers out loud, belatedly. “I’m okay. I’m just- … really, super freaked out. I mean, I- You- Earlier-“

It interrupts the distracted train of thought when Phil gently slips his hand into Clint’s and holds it. It centers him. He takes a deep breath and settles for a quiet moment.

“Do you remember,” Clint starts again, looking down at Phil’s fingers wrapped around his palm – at the wedding ring on his hand that gleams with the light from the window, “that time that John Garrett wanted me to make him my S.O.?” He meets Phil’s eyes. “We’d just been on a mission with him and Ward as backup.”

“Yes, I remember,” Phil says and he sounds serious.

Clint thinks about how it had felt the first morning at work after that. He’d been so tired and was ready for a taste of normalcy. Except, instead, what had woken him up and shaken him by the scruff of his neck was not his coffee, but the embarrassed fear that had possessed him when he’d momentarily thought that Phil had wanted him to agree to and take the transfer.

“That night that he took me out for drinks with just him and Ward – he was trying to recruit me to HYDRA.”

Saying it out loud makes it feel even more surreal.

“What?” Phil props himself up on his elbows.

Staring at him, Clint tries to adjust his understanding of what Garrett’s invitation and that evening meant in his own mind outside of the context of his relationship with Phil. It had been a marked point in his professional career for sure – an opportunity he passed over to continue pursuing what has become a very successful trajectory. One he never would have achieved had he chosen to live in Garrett’s shadow. But in the years since, it’s also become a fixed point in the puzzle of him and Phil together. Clint had seen something in the careful approach Phil had taken to afford him the opportunity, and he’d hoped he wasn’t imagining the hints of emotions he’d seen the following Monday morning. It’s been good to know that he wasn’t. But now-

“I- I almost got inducted into HYDRA.” It doesn’t sound any less startling a second time. He’s retroactively struck by his past inability to see the evil in people he’d considered friends. He’s known now for months and months, but the disconnect between how he’d known them and who they’d really turned out to be is piercing in this moment. He hadn’t sought them out after everything came crashing down but he wonders now if it would have given him closure he hadn’t realized he’d needed. He wonders if anything in them exists that could give some to him. “Garrett and Ward- I- I really thought they weren’t bad guys.”

“We all did.” Phil sounds earnest in his consolation. “Even the triple agents. Even Jasper.”

“I should have known,” Clint says. Insists. “I should have known. That’s like, a thing that’s important to me! Being able to tell when people are fucked and trying to fuck me up!”

Phil holds his hand tighter. “I think maybe you did, a little. I think you probably saw something that made you keep your distance.”

“But I didn’t!!” He’s truly alarmed by this and Phil not seeing why is only causing him more distress. “They almost- what if I’d said _yes_?!”

Clint can feel how wide his eyes are and how stretched with surprise and anxiety his expression must be. He’s panting, hyper-aware of his own panic, and breathless, and he looks down at Phil.

Phil blinks up at him.

“Well,” he says, calmly, as if nothing is wrong, “I’m glad you didn’t.”

Simple as that.

Simple and grateful, in the face of a fragile moment.

It brings Clint down from his panic like a drop of rain falling – with a violent speed into a landing where the fear bursts and dissipates. The tension falls out of his body, too. And as it slips away, Clint turns and leans down over his husband until their chests are pressed together. He props his forearm on the pillow beside Phil’s head and ducks in for a kiss. His first kiss since getting home.

When he pulls away, he doesn’t go far.

“I wanted to belong to you.”

His gaze focuses back and forth between both of Phil’s eyes. The wanting that had been quietly building up inside him so long ago, even at the end of that lengthy, performative evening, wells up inside him again now and washes over him like a monsoon. It’s an ache and a reverberating pang all over again, despite the knowledge now that it’s reciprocated.

Phil reaches up to frame Clint’s face with his hand.

Clint swallows around the emotion. “It wasn’t wanting to stay away from them that made me say no. It was wanting to stay with you.”

Putting it out into the world makes the feeling raw.

“I was so sure you were going to leave,” Phil says. Whispers, almost. He strokes his thumb over Clint’s cheek. “I tricked myself into thinking you were ready to move on to bigger and better things. That it would have been good for you. For both of us.”

Clint gently shakes his head _no_ and leans in for another kiss. Phil slips his hand around to the back of Clint’s neck. He can’t reconcile how much time they spent apart with the depth and parallel of how far back their feelings for each other go. The kiss breaks, and he laughs nervously. An effect of the sudden onset and relief of stress. Of the emotions he’s drawn up to his surface in the past few minutes.

“You have to know,” Clint says, because surely he does, “you have to know, I’m not built like that. That’s not how I work.” Clint will hold on to the good things in his life until his fingers break, before he even thinks about looking for new ones, and Phil has always been one of those. Always. He presses a kiss to Phil’s cheek as he says it, and then to his temple, and then his mouth, where this time he stays locked.

Phil reaches up and fists a handful of Clint’s shirt. Clint doesn’t let up until Phil gasps for breath, and then he’s sweeping a hand down Phil’s bare chest and pressing a trail of kisses against his throat as Phil lets himself fall back against the mattress. His touch drifts from Clint’s face to hold the back of his neck again instead.

“ _Clint_ ,” he chokes out when Clint gets to the dip at his clavicle.

“Sorry,” Clint pants quietly. Just because _he’s_ riled up and feeling skin-hungry doesn’t mean he should do any more to keep Phil awake. “Sorry, I’ll-“

The hand fisted in his shirt tightens and Phil pulls him back into a searing kiss. “Keep going,” he whispers urgently.

Clint moans and dives back in, shoving down the sheet and climbing over top of his husband.

“God, I missed you,” he says against his mouth.

Phil lets go of his shirt and wraps his arms all the way around his back.

“Missed you too,” he says through a ragged breath. “Fuck. _Clint_.”

“Please keep talking,” Clint pants. _Begs_.

Phil’s arms shift as Clint repositions himself a little lower, but he rubs at his shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re safe. I’m so glad you’re here. I…” but his words become too quiet for Clint to hear.

“Speak up,” Clint says with a reprimanding bite to Phil’s chest that punches a sharp ‘ _Ah_ ’ out of him, quickly followed by soft laughter. His amusement, though, turns into a groan that rumbles through his chest under Clint’s hand and mouth as Clint continues to suck.

“I said,” Phil tells him, with a tug to Clint’s hair to pull him off of his chest. He holds him up like that for a moment before finishing; “I want to put my hands all over you.”

Phil continues to hold him by his hair as he looks him over. Clint lets himself be looked at. Phil’s fucked him in front of a mirror enough times that Clint can picture how he must appear right now: throat bared with the way his head is pulled back, his jaw hanging open, eyes glazed. He wets his lower lip and shuts his mouth.

“Did you want me? Back then?”

Phil’s face colors almost instantly. “Yes,” he says, sounding embarrassed. His grip on Clint’s hair goes slack, which isn’t what Clint had intended. It’s not like he didn’t know that Phil wanted him – that they wanted each other – well before they got together, but maybe having brought up this specific memory changes something about the conversation.

“I felt bad about it,” Phil adds.

“Tell me.” Clint wants to know.

Despite his self-consciousness, there isn’t even a hesitation. “You were off limits.” It’s a renewal of a conversation they’ve had before. “You were a subordinate and you trusted me. And I was afraid of breaking that. But we were also both independent adults.” Clint knows what it meant on a personal level for Phil overcome his reservations in any actionable way, and what it meant every day after that when they were together and it wasn’t a secret from their coworkers.

Phil’s gaze drops to where his knuckles brush against Clint’s ribcage. “Sometimes I’d sneak looks at you, and I knew they were more than admiring, but that even maybe admiring was too much.” He meets Clint’s eyes again. “Watching how you handled what was thrown at you, how you made a place for yourself,” Phil shakes his head softly. “I was … in awe of you a little.”

He pets Phil’s chest.

“And you _chose_ me and it made me want you more.”

Clint swallows hard. He feels greedy pulling this out of him. “What else?”

There’s a relaxed sort of resignation to his demeanor now as he looks up at Clint. “You let me see parts of yourself. Real ones. You were beautiful, and clever, and … I felt connected to you. It felt like we connected to each other.”

Clint nods. “You were right.” He wants to answer him in kind. To complete the circuit that Phil has started. “It was there. The connection.” He still feels it. The way it burns hot and tender inside of him. “You were someone I wanted to be with. You’re someone I want to be with every day.”

Phil presses his hand up against Clint’s heart.

The dim light coming in through the window almost obscures the contrast of the scar and the Ranger’s tattoo against the skin of his chest. But Clint sees them, and he knows they’re there.

He dips down for a kiss.

When Phil’s hands slip up under his shirt, his palms feel scalding. They’re like livewires spreading over his skin and melting him. Fingertip trails like rivulets of warm water dripping down his back as Phil strokes over the paths he’d just carved.

“I gotta-“ he says, “Lemme get this off.” He’s already leaning away and kneeling up, trying to get his shirt over his head. It catches on his left aid for a second but he consciously takes a beat and slows himself down to fix it. They’re not in a rush.

When he tosses off his shirt, he finds Phil stretching back towards his side of the bed to get a hand in his bedside table drawer and grab the lube. He drops it on the mattress beside his hip and lies back down flat under Clint. Phil hooks two fingers into the waistband of Clint’s boxers and tugs gently.

“You too,” Clint tells him. He still goes ahead and pushes them down his thighs.

Phil lifts his hips and kicks his pants off once the elastic is past his knees.

Clint has been told before, by Phil and other people, that he’s got a piercing kind of gaze. But the way Phil looks at him in moments like these, like he’s Phil’s whole focus, is going to eat Clint up every time.

Clint hunches forward and closes the distance of cool air between them and to take another kiss. He shivers at the warmth of skin touching bare skin and then that’s all he can feel. The blood rushing in his ears and under Phil’s skin. The attached heat of their mouths. Their breaths. How Phil’s palms, hot and steady, push up across his back.

His cock is pressed into Phil’s thigh and Phil’s into his. It’s a compression that makes Clint feel safe.

If Clint weren’t busy propping himself up, he could-

Phil’s arms tighten around him and in the span of a breath, Clint finds himself rolled onto his back. It’s a reversal he’s happy to take. Clint immediately uses the opportunity to start pawing at his husband.

“Your telepathy is really hot,” Clint tells him, running his hands down Phil’s chest.

“Oh?” Phil steals a kiss.

“Yeah,” he pants when it breaks, “how else-” he tilts his head up for another kiss, “did you know-” and another, “that was exactly-” and another, “what I wanted you to do-” he tips his head back to get some air, “before I even knew it?”

He’s answered with a thoughtful hum.

“I’m sorry to break your fantasy,” Phil starts kissing down his exposed neck, “but I’m just acting on some very base instincts here.” Clint whines as he drags the tip of his nose back up the other side. “I’m only mortal,” he purrs before dropping a kiss to Clint’s mouth.

Clint locks his hands onto Phil’s hips. “Denying it only makes it hotter.” His breath catches when Phil wraps a hand against his ribs and starts thumbing at his nipple.

“I don’t know,” Phil says speculatively. “I think-,” he starts, then interrupts himself with a biting kiss that tugs Clint’s lower lip as he pulls away to continue, “that it’s pretty hot when the things we both want line up all the time on their own.”

Phil grinds down against him slow.

A soft, wanting sound escapes Clint. He’s long, long given up on any concern against seeming too needy in front of Phil. Phil gets off on it – on providing for him – and Clint gets off on his vulnerability being rewarded.

He reaches down to grab Phil’s dick and the weight of it feels good. He strokes upwards.

“I missed you.” His words come out plaintive. He squeezes Phil’s balls at the end of the downstroke and then adjusts his hips to line them up and try to take them both in hand. “I missed your cock and I missed-,” his breath hitches as he humps upwards and manages to brush himself against Phil’s leg, “-getting to touch you.”

Phil refuses to lower his hips and meet Clint’s efforts, further teasing him by moving his head to avoid his mouth. “Did you?” He reaches back blindly towards his side of the bed for the bottle of lube.

“Uh huh,” Clint answers. He stops wiggling to hold out his hand for Phil to squirt some into, then takes a minute to warm it between both his palms.

Phil kisses a half circle around the base of his throat and moves slowly up his neck. “What else?”

Clint sighs. “Whenever we got a quiet moment, I’d end up thinking about the last time you fucked me. And the last time you fucked me before all these trips started. How good you gave it to me without even knowing it’d have to last me a while.”

Phil groans when Clint takes him in hand again. He slips forward a little and their jaws brush together. It’s a shiver-inducing rasp of stubble-on-stubble. Clint can picture them in the morning standing side by side at their sink after taking too long in the shower together, trying to share the space to shave so they can both get out the door on time. Clint rubs his face against him more, and puts his other hand to work too. It leaves Phil panting into the hollow of his neck.

“You always give it to me so good, Phil. Like it’s your fucking job.” He turns his head so that his lips brush the corner of Phil’s mouth. “And we both know what your work ethic’s like.” He plants a kiss to Phil’s cheek. “Thorough to a fault.”

He starts stroking in earnest and Phil’s shoulders hunch forward.

“But even when there wasn’t downtime, everything made me think about you,” Clint tells him. “The time difference sucked. It always sucks, but, I’d go to sleep wishing I could call you. Just to talk.” The speed of Clint’s strokes picks up. “I missed getting to hear your voice.”

Phil catches his wrists – both of them in one hand. It only works because Phil is fast and because Clint’s arms are lined right up together. Clint waits, breathing a little heavily as he lies there with his hands suspended between their bodies but wrapped uselessly around him still. The anticipation builds as Phil slowly props himself up further and takes his time looking down at Clint. It’s excruciating in the best kind of way. Clint wants to squirm out of his body but is thrilled with his own obedient stillness as Phil holds him at just the one point of contact.

Phil’s thumb strokes over the back of Clint’s arm. “You weren’t the only one.” His eyes are full of a tenderness that Clint almost can’t stand. “I missed the way the apartment feels full when you’re home. I miss how full you make me feel.”

A small grin blooms across Clint’s face and he gives Phil’s cock a squeeze. It makes Phil huff a laugh.

“I missed your smile,” Phil tells him, searching his face. He looks a little caught up in the moment, or maybe a memory.

It’s reassuring to lay all these absences out on the table together. To hear how Phil felt about him, even while he was away. It feels good. Anchoring.

Phil releases him from capture and presses a consoling kiss against his mouth. It absorbs his focus and distracts Clint from anything else he might be doing except holding onto Phil’s hips.

The noise Clint makes when Phil gets a hand around him comes out sounding almost hurt. He sucks in a breath through his teeth on the upstroke and tries to hump into the gesture. Phil finally spreads out over Clint, lowering his hips until he can take them both in hand.

“How’s that for you?” he asks. His voice is low.

Clint bites his lip and nods in response. It’s only a half-circle of contact but the friction and motion are absolutely doing it for him. Phil giving in to him and doing what Clint had wanted to do helps with how hot it seems. He moves his hands around to cup Phil’s ass and press their pelvises closer together.

“So good,” he says out loud to emphasize his enjoyment. He gives the meat of Phil’s ass a squeeze.

Clint had gone fast but Phil is taking his everloving time tonight. It’s clear that he’ll be spend as long as he wants getting Clint off, which is fucking par for the course. But Clint will take it. It’s exactly what he needs after being away so long. His skin-hunger is rapidly approaching satiation this way. It may not take much no matter what Phil intends.

He lets one hand sweep upwards, skimming over the scar on Phil’s back to splay against his shoulders where he can feel the muscles bunching as he works them both over – speeding up then slowing down again. For a handful of moments, Phil uses his core strength to roll into the circle of his fist. Clint wishes he had a side view of it.

“Why don’t you get us some more lube,” Phil suggests. “I want to keep you wet.”

Clint makes a hurt little grunt. “Give yourself some credit.” They’re both leaking all over each other. But it’s not like they can’t use it. 

He reaches out for the bottle, patting around until he finds it and squeezes it one-handed into the cup of his palm. The tube is empty enough that he’s not worried about spillage. He drops it back onto the mattress and this time, doesn’t wait at all to warm it up before pressing it against their cocks. Phil’s hips only stutter a little at the contact.

Clint likes to look and Phil knows, so he keeps the space between them open. His chin dips down to watch the push of their cockheads through the tight ring of their fingers. And tonight, this is better than just Phil doing it to him. Seeing their hands move in tandem settles a relaxed, soft edge to the voyeuristic, physical excitement. It fits right alongside the last of his adrenaline being burned off which he didn’t even know was there.

“It looks so good. Wrapped up together with you like this.”

Clint’s breath hitches. “Tighter.”

Phil only squeezes him a little bit more before he lets up again. God, he can’t resist teasing. And Clint can’t resist jerking up in his grip to try and get that friction back.

But it’s as if this only spurs Phil on to pull Clint over the edge in his own way.

“You’ve got me worked up,” Phil tells him. “I’m going to be easy tonight.”

Clint whimpers. His thumb strokes the dip between muscle and bone at the top of Phil’s clavicle.

“You said you missed my voice, but I missed getting to touch you.”

“I said that too,” Clint protests.

Phil kisses him soundly instead of responding. “I missed waking up in the middle of the night and having you wrapped around me. And I missed having you hand me my coffee in the morning and the way you’d kiss me as you did. I thought about holding your hand across the console every night that I drove home.”

Their legs rub together as they shift and as they balance against one another. Clint lets his free hand trail down his side then back up. It moves out and in with his ribs as Phil inhales.

“Your body feels so good against mine,” he tells Clint.

With the hand he’s got holding onto the top of Phil’s shoulder, he starts rubbing hard, knowing the massage will feel good and loving how alive Phil feels beneath his fingers – both of their muscles moving against each other.

He drops his head down into the crook of Clint’s neck. Clint tips his head back and rolls his shoulders against the mattress.

“You look so pretty like this,” Phil says, “I could keep you here forever.” He nips at a tendon. “On the edge and enjoying yourself.” He licks a stripe of skin then blows cool air on it. Clint feels his own cock pulse in their joined hands.

“You’d have to stay here too,” Clint tells him. “You’d have to keep me here.” Otherwise Clint would have to get up and find him.

“You’d need me to hold you? Is that it?” Phil’s hand twists, out of rhythm, knocking into Clint’s fist and unexpectedly quick.

“ _Yes_ ,” Clint cries, arching his back.

“What about now, Clint?” His voice is low as his lips brush against Clint’s throat and face. “Do you feel held?”

He fucking does.

Clint’s orgasm pours out of him in waves that he feels deep in his body. It’s a lasting sort of high.

Phil is still occupied kissing all over his face when Clint manages enough woozy focus to reach for his cock again. Phil sighs at the contact and starts doing half the work, pushing into the tight circle of Clint’s fingers and palm.

“That’s it,” he coos at Clint’s efforts to help. His sweet bites and kisses wander down Clint’s neck.

Clint makes soft sounds at every clip of teeth. Not a performance, just a lack of suppression. He lets himself feel free enough to react. He’s comfortable. It’s just a bonus that it’s something Phil is really into.

“Kiss me,” Clint tells him, and Phil acquiesces.

And he shudders as Clint squeezes him and starts using both hands to continuously pull upwards on his cock.

“ _Clint_ -“ he chokes out.

He rolls his hips down one more time and comes all over Clint’s stomach.

Phil stays braced above him as they pant in silence together and come back down until they’ve caught their breath. After a handful of moments, Phil falls to the side, still panting, but quietly. And once he’s laid back down in bed, Clint rolls back over him for another kiss. It breaks when Clint starts to smile too wide for it to continue.

“Hey,” Clint says.

“Hi.”

“ _Hey_.”

“Yes?”

“When you said you tricked yourself … and that you’d thought it would be better for us …”

Phil’s clean hand comes up to the back of his head. He’s got his listening eyes on. 

“You’re the best thing that could’ve happened to me,” Clint tells him, still grinning. “And not just because sticking with you got me turned into a bonafide superhero.”

“No?” Phil asks, playing along.

“No,” Clint whispers back. He presses another short kiss to Phil’s mouth. “Getting to love you is everything. It makes all the bullshit worth it. Having you love me back makes it _more_ than worth it.”

Phil pulls him down by his neck until their foreheads touch. He closes his eyes for the moment and the contact, but Clint keeps his open, taking it in. And he keeps talking.

“Everything’s better with you.” The urge to confess this, to say it out loud is bubbling up inside him and he can’t contain it and he doesn’t want to. “I love you all the time, every day, and it makes me happy to make you happy. You make me happy. _You’re_ good for me.”

Phil opens his eyes. “You’re good for me too.” He smiles and it’s a gentle thing. “I’m glad we get to belong to each other.”

“Yeah,” Clint whispers, and goes in for a long, lingering kiss. It breaks with a sigh.

“This was worth waking up for,” Phil tells him with a sweet smile and a gentle hand cupped against the side of his neck.

Clint is sure he has an incorrigible, smartass response in the face of such a benevolent reaction to his demands for attention, but it’s cut off by a yawn, and he forgets it. He lifts himself and falls against the pillow, letting his eyes close.

“Alright,” Phil says, “Time to clean up.”

Before Clint can muster the energy, Phil is back on his own side of the bed and getting tissues and wet-wipes from the nightstand.

“Thank you,” Clint mumbles as Phil wipes him off.

A peck to the lips is Phil’s response. “You’re welcome,” he says, before standing up from the bed. It’s followed by the dim sounds of him dropping the trash into their trashcan and putting the lube back where it belongs. Then he’s on Clint’s side of the bed.

“Can you give me your ears?”

Clint sighs through his nose as he nods and reaches up and takes them out. The nightstand is pressed up against the bed frame and he can feel the vibration of the drawer runners opening and closing as Phil puts them away. He lazily peeks his eyes open just a little and watches as Phil moves around the end of the bed. There’s a soft surety to his movements as he walks and sits on his side of the bed. He leans to pull the covers back over Clint and scoots his own pillow closer to the middle before he lies down and tucks himself in.

Clint makes the effort to wiggle closer until he can roll onto his side and atop Phil’s chest. Phil wraps an arm around Clint’s waist and up his back. With his other, he reaches for Clint’s. They fall asleep with their hands locked together, and in the morning they’ll both wake up with a renewed sense of readiness to face their weeks.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m literally only capable of making things emotional but I won’t apologize for that.  
>    
> Thank you to everyone who is reading this, and to everyone who commented on the last fic. Genuinely, all of your comments made writing this a breeze and they meant the world to me. <3
> 
> **If you liked this story you may also like:**  
> [stop the world, I wanna get off with you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2304398) by [soniclipstick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veriscence/pseuds/soniclipstick)  
> [Another Day Closer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2320109) by [msraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msraven/pseuds/msraven)


End file.
